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Eleven books by a shoemaker of Görlitz who wrote, by his own account, because he could not help it. Ten of them stand here in the seventeenth-century English of John Sparrow, who translated Boehme within a generation of his death and whose prose is itself now four hundred years old; where that English has drifted out of reach, the facing pane carries a modern register — the same text with archaic inflection and spelling normalised by rule, never paraphrased. Nothing is reworded, and where no register appears beside a passage it is because the rules found nothing to change.
The eleventh book is not in English at all, and it is the reason this note exists.
Des trois principes de l'essence divine, printed at Paris in 1802, is the same work as Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence, which stands here as the second book — the same twenty-seven chapters in the same order, opening `Du premier principe de l'essence divine` against Sparrow's `Of the first Principle of the Divine Essence`. Its translator was Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, who gave the last years of his life to putting Boehme into French, and who has a shelf of his own in this Lycaeum.
That makes a closed circuit inside this archive, and it is worth naming plainly. Saint-Martin translates Boehme. La Iniciación, printed in Montevideo a hundred and forty years later, traces its own descent through Saint-Martin. A reader can therefore follow one thread from a German mystic of 1619, through the French philosopher who carried him into another language, to a Spanish-language monthly of the 1940s that claimed them both — and read every step of it in the original.
The two are shelved as one work rather than two because that is what they are. They are not set as facing panes: an English translation of 1619 and a French translation of 1802 are two independent readings of a lost German original, and pairing them line by line would assert a correspondence neither translator ever claimed.
1Or dost thou think my writing is too earthly? 64. If thou wert come to this window, thou wouldst not then say that it is earthly: And though I must indeed use the earthly tongue, yet there is a true heavenly understanding couched under it, which in my outermost birth I am not able to express, either in writing or in speaking. 65. I know very well that the word concerning the three births cannot be comprehended or apprehended in every man's heart, especially where the heart is too much steeped, soaked or drowned in the flesh, and bolted or barred up with the outermost birth. 66. But I cannot render it otherwise than as it is, for it is just so; and though I should write mere spirit, as indeed and truth it is no other, yet the heart understandeth only flesh. Concerning the Constitution and Form of the Earth 67. Many authors have written that heaven and earth were created out of NOTHING. But I wonder that, among so many excellent men, there hath not one been found that could yet describe the true ground; seeing the same God which now is, hath been from eternity. 68. Now, where nothing is, there nothing can come to be: All things must have a root, else can nothing grow: If the seven spirits of nature had not been from eternity, then there would have come to be no angel, no heaven, also no earth. 69. But the earth is come from the corrupted Salitter of the outermost birth or geniture, which thou canst not deny, when thou lookest on earth
2and stones, for then thou must needs say that death is therein: On the other hand also thou must needs say that there is a life therein, otherwise neither gold nor silver, nor any plant, herb, grass or vegetable, could grow therein. Now one might ask, Are there also all the three births or genitures therein? Answer. 70. Yes: the life presseth through death; the outermost birth is the death; the second is the life, which standeth in the wrathfire and in the love; and the third is the holy life. An Instruction or Information. 71. The outward earth is a bitter stink, and is dead; and that every man understandeth to be so. But the Salitter is destroyed or killed through the wrath; for thou canst not deny but that God's wrath is in the earth, otherwise the earth would not be so astringent, bitter, sour, venomous and poisonous, neither would it engender such poisonous, venomous, evil worms and creeping things. But if thou shouldst say that God hath created them thus out of his purpose, that is as much as if thou shouldst say that God himself is evil, malice, malignity or wickedness. 72. Pray tell me, Why was the devil expelled or thrust out? Surely thou wilt say, Because of his pride, in that he would needs be above God. But guess, Sir, with what the devil would be so: What power had he to do it? Here tell me, if thou knowest anything of it; if thou knowest nothing, be silent and attentive. 73. Before the times of the creation he sat in the Salitter of the earth, when the Salitter was
3yet thin or transparent, and stood in a heavenly, holy birth or geniture, and he was in the whole kingdom of this world, therein was neither earth nor stones, but a heavenly seed, which was generated out of the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of nature; for in the kingdom of this world sprang up heavenly fruits, forms and ideas, which were a pleasant, delightful food of angels. 74. But when the wrath did burn in the seed, then the seed was killed and destroyed in death: Yet not so to be understood as if it were therefore altogether quite dead; for how can anything in God die totally, that hath had its life from eternity? 75. But I. The outermost birth or geniture was burnt up, frozen, drowned, stupefied, chilled and stark benumbed. 76. But II. The second birth or geniture generateth the life again in the outermost. 77. And III. The third [birth] is generated between the first and the second, that is, between heaven and hell, in the midst or centre of the wrathfire, and the spirit presseth through the wrathfire, and generateth the holy life, which standeth in the power of the love. 78. And in this same birth or geniture will those dead arise who have sown a holy seed, and those who have sown in the wrath will arise in the wrathfire: For the earth will revive and be living again, seeing the Deity in Christ hath regenerated it anew again through his flesh, and exalted it to the right hand of God: But the wrathfire abideth in its own birth or geniture. 79. But if thou sayest that there is no life in
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1Or dost thou think my writing is too earthly? 64. If thou wert come to this window, thou wouldst not then say that it is earthly: And though I must indeed use the earthly tongue, yet there is a true heavenly understanding couched under it, which in my outermost birth I am not able to express, either in writing or in speaking. 65. I know very well that the word concerning the three births cannot be comprehended or apprehended in every man's heart, especially where the heart is too much steeped, soaked or drowned in the flesh, and bolted or barred up with the outermost birth. 66. But I cannot render it otherwise than as it is, for it is just so; and though I should write mere spirit, as indeed and truth it is no other, yet the heart understandeth only flesh. Concerning the Constitution and Form of the Earth 67. Many authors have written that heaven and earth were created out of NOTHING. But I wonder that, among so many excellent men, there hath not one been found that could yet describe the true ground; seeing the same God which now is, hath been from eternity. 68. Now, where nothing is, there nothing can come to be: All things must have a root, else can nothing grow: If the seven spirits of nature had not been from eternity, then there would have come to be no angel, no heaven, also no earth. 69. But the earth is come from the corrupted Salitter of the outermost birth or geniture, which thou canst not deny, when thou lookest on earth
2and stones, for then thou must needs say that death is therein: On the other hand also thou must needs say that there is a life therein, otherwise neither gold nor silver, nor any plant, herb, grass or vegetable, could grow therein. Now one might ask, Are there also all the three births or genitures therein? Answer. 70. Yes: the life presseth through death; the outermost birth is the death; the second is the life, which standeth in the wrathfire and in the love; and the third is the holy life. An Instruction or Information. 71. The outward earth is a bitter stink, and is dead; and that every man understandeth to be so. But the Salitter is destroyed or killed through the wrath; for thou canst not deny but that God's wrath is in the earth, otherwise the earth would not be so astringent, bitter, sour, venomous and poisonous, neither would it engender such poisonous, venomous, evil worms and creeping things. But if thou shouldst say that God hath created them thus out of his purpose, that is as much as if thou shouldst say that God himself is evil, malice, malignity or wickedness. 72. Pray tell me, Why was the devil expelled or thrust out? Surely thou wilt say, Because of his pride, in that he would needs be above God. But guess, Sir, with what the devil would be so: What power had he to do it? Here tell me, if thou knowest anything of it; if thou knowest nothing, be silent and attentive. 73. Before the times of the creation he sat in the Salitter of the earth, when the Salitter was
3yet thin or transparent, and stood in a heavenly, holy birth or geniture, and he was in the whole kingdom of this world, therein was neither earth nor stones, but a heavenly seed, which was generated out of the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of nature; for in the kingdom of this world sprang up heavenly fruits, forms and ideas, which were a pleasant, delightful food of angels. 74. But when the wrath did burn in the seed, then the seed was killed and destroyed in death: Yet not so to be understood as if it were therefore altogether quite dead; for how can anything in God die totally, that hath had its life from eternity? 75. But I. The outermost birth or geniture was burnt up, frozen, drowned, stupefied, chilled and stark benumbed. 76. But II. The second birth or geniture generateth the life again in the outermost. 77. And III. The third [birth] is generated between the first and the second, that is, between heaven and hell, in the midst or centre of the wrathfire, and the spirit presseth through the wrathfire, and generateth the holy life, which standeth in the power of the love. 78. And in this same birth or geniture will those dead arise who have sown a holy seed, and those who have sown in the wrath will arise in the wrathfire: For the earth will revive and be living again, seeing the Deity in Christ hath regenerated it anew again through his flesh, and exalted it to the right hand of God: But the wrathfire abideth in its own birth or geniture. 79. But if thou sayest that there is no life in
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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